Wednesday, January 04, 2017

Victory and Indian motorcycles dealership busted scamming the factory for rebates based on program to get vets a $1000 discount

Shark Cycles (ironic) in Stafford Springs Connecticut was raided by the feds in May of 2016. The owner and 2 employees were arrested and released on bail.

Charged with larceny, money-laundering, and 12 counts each of identity theft and forgery for allegedly scamming Polaris Industries.

The investigation began nine months ago when a lawyer for Polaris, which makes Victory and Indian motorcycles, Slingshot three-wheelers and Polaris-branded ATVs, alerted authorities that the dealer might be committing government document fraud.

“It was determined that the employees of Shark Cycle were stealing the personal information – names, birthday and Social Security numbers – of customers who were veterans. They would then use the factual information on fraudulent Department of Defense documents, which were submitted to Polaris for a $1,000 credit. Polaris was running a rebate called ‘Hero’s Medal,’ so that anyone with a military, police or firefighter identification who bought a new Victory motorcycle from a licensed dealer would get a $1,000 rebate.

“It was found that the fraud scheme was done so that Shark Cycle could present lower prices to customers, thus spiking its sales numbers. In turn, Shark Cycle received an additional monetary bonus from Polaris for high sales numbers,” Fox 61 explained in its online story.